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TRANSLATING THE OTHER CONSTRUCTING
THE SELF
Japanese premodern encyclopedias and the transculturality of
knowledge
Maria Grajdian∗∗∗∗
Abstract: In its sublimated and highly stylized premodernity as a
closed country, Japan reached an impressive level of assimilation and
conversion of foreign cultural and technological assets, originating
primarily from the Chinese mainland. However, by the dawn of the 19th
century, one of the greatest achievements of the school of the so-called
rangaku-sha (scholars of Dutch studies, residing mainly in Nagasaki)
became the translation process of important Western books tackling the
problematic of organizing and systemizing Western knowledge which
was on the brink of an unprecedented explosion due to the industrial and
technological development. This paper analyzes two early Japanese
encyclopedias, both emerged as translations: one of Chinese origins
(Wakan sansai zue, 1712) and one of French origins, transported to
Japan via Dutch merchants arriving at Dejima (Kôsei shinpen, 1811-
1840). Thus, oscillating between original Chinese models and subsequent
Western archetypes, along the history, Japanese encyclopedias seem to
challenge such asymmetrical notions as identity and alterity through
new formulations of ideas flows and their transformational nature:
Emerging knowledge as means of historical power metamorphoses
∗ Visiting Professor PhD., University of Nagasaki, Japan
through educational implementation into real – political as well as
economic – power and reveals encyclopedic practice in Japan’s case as
one of the secret weapons in the course of its astonishingly fast
modernization and its miraculous postwar resurrection.
Keywords: encyclopedias, pre-modern Japan, Wakan sansai zue,
Kôsei shinpen, encyclopedic practice in Japan
1. Introduction: coping with the other
Michel Foucault writes at the beginning of his seminal study Les Mots
et les choses (Foucault 1966:7):
Ce livre a son lieu de naissance dans un texte de Borges.
Dans le rire qui secoue à sa lecture, toutes les familiarités de
la pensée – de la nôtre: de celle qui a notre âge et notre
géographie –, ébranlant toutes les surfaces ordonnées et tous
les plans qui assagissent pour nous le foisonnement des
êtres, faisant vaciller et inquiétant pour longtemps notre
pratique millénaire du Même et de l'Autre. Ce texte cite a une
«certaine encyclopédie chinoise» où il est écrit que les
animaux se divisent en: a) appartenant à l'Empereur, b)
embaumés, c) apprivoisés, d) cochons de lait, e) sirènes, f)
fabuleux, g) chiens en liberté, h) inclus dans la présente
classification, i) qui s'agitent comme des fous, j)
innombrables, k) dessinés avec un pinceau très fin en poils
de chameau, 1) et caetera, m) qui viennent de casser la
cruche, n) qui de loin semblent des mouches». Dans
l'émerveillement de cette taxinomie, ce qu'on rejoint d'un
bond, ce qui, à la faveur de l'apologue, nous est indiqué
comme le charme exotique d'une autre pensée, c'est la limite
de la nôtre: l'impossibilité nue de penser cela.
While it is unclear what specific Chinese encyclopedia both Borges and
Foucault refer to, it is important to note the fact that Foucault uses the
bizarre taxonomy mode quoted as a means to highlight the different
paradigms of knowledge organization in different cultures and at different
points in time. Backing on this seminal study of the paradoxes and
contradictions of knowledge administration across times and spaces, the
current paper’s main goal is to underline the paradigm shift from Chinese
to Western models in Japanese premodern encyclopedias, in a
comparative approach. Accordingly, two encyclopedias are taken into
account as emblematic archetypes of this process: Wakan sansei zue and
Kôsei shinpen, which both marked at the time of their release turning
points in the history of ideas and knowledge administration in Japan.
Within the comparative analysis, the two works are regarded both in their
intrinsic dimension as containers of knowledge and in their extrinsic
aspects in a wider historical-geographical context referring to cultural
orientation on a specific social background while including economic
developments and political on-goings.
A further dimension of these proto-encyclopedias functioning as
socio-cultural phenomena is the relationship between culture and power,
as well as the asymmetries between these two parameters, affecting
illustrations and (auto-)biographical writing as means to express the self
and the other in a coherent, convincing manner. In the same way as works
of consumption literature reflect the tensions between production
processes and readership, on the one side, and publisher and bureaucrats,
on the other side, encyclopedias as containers and manipulators of
historical knowledge in a close country as Japan used to be from 1602 until
1686 refer to themselves as sources of power, overcoming the status of
cultural products and turning into important social agents in the making of
historicities between Japan and China and between Japan and the West.
Thus, the historical flow of encyclopedic knowledge within Asia and
between Europe and Asia as concretized in Japan’s case includes
transcultural discursive elements deeply implemented in the narrative
structures of Japanese encyclopedias as “knowledge depositors and
manipulators” (as stated by Mr Saitô Fumio, editor of the Heibonsha
World Encyclopedia, in March 2010). In this train of thoughts, the
following lines analyze the process of the emergence of the self as an
ideological construction (on the basis of Louis Althusser’s concept of
ideology; Althusser 1976:34) while translating and internalizing the “Great
Other” represented in Chinese and Western encyclopedias imported to
Japan and translated into Japanese before the Meiji Restoration. Hereby,
Julia Kristeva’s ‘semiotic’ and ‘symbolic’ concepts in the process of identity
formation as discourse is of great help (Kristeva 1974:144): within the on-
going process of maturing identity awareness in the “symbolical order” –
that is, the order of the individual tackling the problematic of its inner and
outer world(s) –, constant remembrances of the “semiotic order” – that is,
the infant worldview being confronted with realities not yet
understandable or hidden – erupt and disturb the self searching for
balanced freedom.
I approach the research on encyclopedias anthropologically, regarding
them in the larger context of their emergence and development rather than
as linguistic artifacts. Anthropologically grounded, there are two levels of
encyclopedic practice to be taken into account in the forthcoming analysis
– as form and as contents, underlying five paradigms of theoretical
thinking related to encyclopedias:
1. Encyclopedias exist and flourish in the stress ratio between media
and message as these terms were defined and implemented by Marshall
McLuhan (1962:14): on the one hand, they conserve and preserve
knowledge as given in a certain region at a certain moment in time,
whereas they are also “living, printed witness” of the state of knowledge in
that particular context, referring to what their producers considered to be
important in their specific worldview.
2. Encyclopedias exist traditionally as knowledge containers and as
means of knowledge organization, systematization, transmission and
preservation, as the analysts Hans Jörg Sandkühler (2009:68), Michel
Foucault (1969:65) and Firtz Machlup (1984:135) see them. The
encyclopedic principle does not appear, in this perspective, as a
compensation for the loss of a once-upon-a-time homogeneous world due
to the advent of the pluralism, but rather as the renewal of conditio
humana, adapting itself to current upheavals and turnovers.
3. Zygmunt Bauman (1993:26) and Mike Featherstone (1995:21)
employ the term ‘encyclopedia’ as instruments of knowledge transfer,
translation and transgression: thus, ’encyclopedia’ is one of those cultural
forms in which several possible worlds co-exist under the hegemony of
pluralism, so that the apparently uncontrollable variety is reduced to a
fascinating unity overcoming the domination of the individual.
4. A further knowledge paradigm appears in the context of
[over]specialized knowledge, as Bauman (1993:34) puts it. Manuel Castells
(1997:287) refers to encyclopedias as timely conceptions, while in Slavoj
Žižek’s writings they are subject of gendered readings to reflect and
enforce the male-female asymmetries (Žižek 1998:154). However, in the
stress ratio between being represented and representing, as Joy Hendry
(2000:61) puts it, encyclopedias appear as compound knowledge and
socialized form of knowledge on the marketed world of knowledge display
and knowledge control.
5. Finally, within the manifold human universe, the ‘encyclopedia’
takes over the preservation of the concepts to create orientation from the
past to the future. Indeed, the ‘encyclopedia’ does not simply reflect the
present while perpetuating the past, but rather establishes the pillars for
the morrow’s worlds. Thus, complex relations of submission
(Unterwerfung) and repression (Unterdrückung) in Foucault’s parlance
(Foucault 1969:78) as well as of knowledge inversion and subversion as
Yoshimi Shun’ya (2006:83) refers them, emerge, simultaneously
designating four paradigms of encyclopedic contents:
(ア) Firstly, there is the balance between self (identity) and other
(alterity), as Judith Butler (1990:72) and Julia Kristeva (1974:142)
point out in the textual analysis of literary forms.
(イ) Secondly, there is the evolution experienced by cultural
assets in late-modern societies from ethics to aesthetics and from
imagination to ideology, as to be dealt with in writings by Terry
Eagleton (1990:65).
(ウ) Thirdly, there is the tension between text as discursive
formation and image as non-discursive representation, as Kristeva
(1974:227) refers in her analyses of contemporary cultural
phenomena.
(エ) Fourthly, there is the narrative level of the printed materials
and the meta-narrative level of the sources, institutions, authors,
spatio-temporal contexts, readerships, as to be found in Geertz’s,
Kristeva’s and Foucault’s analytics of power relationships in times
of cultural reproduction (Foucault 1969:132, Geertz 1973:43,
Kristeva 1974:208).
Accordingly, the epistemic conditions necessary for the success of
transculturality as mediated by encyclopedias, that is, the recognition of
the diversity of cultures as well as the co-existence of apparently
incommensurable cultures at both the macro-level of society and the
micro-level of individual, presuppose addressing transculturality while
sketching a conception of culture by way of an epistemological perspective
through which transcultural understanding and action becomes possible.
Basic premises in this endeavor are the following points (Sandkühler
2002:83):
(a) Pluralism is a fact of the modern world; there is no
rationally sustainable way around it.
(b) This factual pluralism, perceived primarily as the
expression of a plurality of ethical, social and political
attitudes, is based on a dimension of freedom which realizes
itself epistemologically and which must be investigated
epistemologically.
(c) This freedom expresses itself in a diversity of cultures
of knowledge such as, for example, art, philosophy and
science which are equally legitimate. None of these cultures
may claim superiority over others through recourse to
hierarchical forms of rationality.
(d) Cultures of knowledge are molded by beliefs that
compete with one another. This competition engenders the
problem of relativism.
(e) Pluralism and relativism present philosophers with
the task of formulating anew their claims to rationality.
In this train of thoughts, encyclopedias appear as practical
manifestations of philosophy, taking into account the plurality of thoughts
and ways of life, evolving into an epistemic democracy. They do it
sincerely, objectively, as a constructive critique of any hegemonic claims of
individual cultures of knowledge (see Sandkühler 2002:83). Thus, the
current study offers, after a short survey on the encyclopedic situation in
Japan until the release of Wakan sansei zue and Kôsei shinpen, detailed
presentations of these two works which highlight the main characteristics
of the genre in Edo-Japan (1603-1868). Crucial issues within the
dynamically changing ideological and aesthetical orientation of the
Japanese intellectuals’ views of knowledge organization and taxonomic
system(s) from Chinese models to Western standards emerge, anticipating
– maybe subliminally – the forthcoming opening of the country by mid-
1800. In this concern, an important departing point is marked by the
words of the distinguished expert Sugimoto Tsutomu, Japanese linguist
and specialist in rangaku (Netherlands studies) of international fame, as
quoted below:
Japanese intellectuals in Edo-Japan belonged to the
samurai class and as such didn’t have to work in order to
make a living. As there were hardly any wars, they also didn’t
have to fight to prove their status. Consequently, they had
very much time to think and read, to write and see the future,
envisaging their assumptions on the current on-goings.
That’s why both Wakan sansei zue and Kôsei shinpen
appeared at knot moments in the history of Edo-Japan: they
condensed in their pages the essence of past times and the
longing of the present, while at the same time, announcing
future incidents. They were not simple printed media usable
to gain information and to develop knowledge necessary for
the everyday life, but profound manifestos to guide the
masses in their search for own identity. It is important to
understand this function of Japanese printed media Wakan
sansei zue as well as Kôsei shinpen stand for in order to
appreciate the real reasons why the 17th and the 18th centuries
belonged to such a culturally blossoming period for Japan
and why the Meiji restoration took place, after all. (during an
interview in March 2010)
Cognitive processes and statements about reality essentially depend
upon whichever understanding of the relationship between knowledge and
reality is preferred. These understandings are themselves parts of
universal frameworks, namely of visions and representations of the world.
The external world – things in themselves as well as their characteristics –
offers no guarantee for the rightfulness of knowledge, as every specific bit
of knowledge comes under certain determinate cultural and epistemic
conditions. Such conditions are, for instance, schemata of perception and
experience, descriptive schemata and contexts of symbolic forms,
instrumental means of knowledge and cultural forms of action and
behavior. Truths – encyclopedic or not – are therefore only contextually
and-or indexically conditioned, provided, additionally, with the critical
reservation typical for human endeavors (see Sandkühler 2002:90-91).
Knowledge is not independent from intentional propositional attitudes,
from beliefs, opinions and ideals; the objectivity of propositions is bound
up with the subjectivity of the propositional attitude. Since knowledge and
the plurality of knowledge have the status of contextual and perspectivist
constructions, they are relative; they cannot be protected a priori from
skeptical attacks, and their truth competes with the truth of others. In such
a culture of knowledge, reality does not exist as a finished world. Instead,
phenomenal reality exists as the constant task of epistemic and practical
design and reproduction (see Sandkühler 2002:95). This is what
encyclopedias do: within such a culture of knowledge carrying a risk
related to the relativisation of previously stable standards of knowledge
and action, encyclopedias stabilize cultural relativism and ethno-pluralism
which cannot provide a ground for the solution of the problems resulting
from the tension between the universality of human needs, the
particularity of cultures and the individuality of people’s goals in life.
2. Between Eastern and Western knowledge paradigms
Contrary to the prevalent opinion that encyclopedias are available in
Japan only since its modernization and hasty import of Western
civilization patterns, at a closer look, one can trace the origins of
encyclopedia or encyclopedia-like works as far as back to the early Heian
period (794-1185/1192), in the ninth century. Encyclopedic books had been
imported from China at an early date, and encyclopedia-like works had
been published in Japan for well over a thousand years before Japan's first
modern encyclopedias were officially released after Japan's opening to the
West, during the Meiji period (1868-1912)1.
The first proto-encyclopedia produced in Japan was the 1000-scroll
Hifuryaku (秘府略, literally “Summary of the Palace Library”), compiled in
831 upon the emperor's orders by Shigeno no Sadanushi 滋野貞主 and
others, of which only fragments survive today (Kornicki 2000:57). The
first truly Japanese-style encyclopedia is said to be Minamoto no Shitagô’s
源順 (911-983) 10-scroll work Wamyô ruijushô 倭名類聚抄 from 938,
meaning literally Lexicon of Japanese readings of words or Japanese
1 Kornicki (2000:34)
names [for things] classified and annotated, begun in 934 at the request
of Emperor Daigô’s daughter. Written in ancient Japanese syllabary
system man’yôgana (a system using kanji to represent Japanese
pronunciation) and based on an ancient lexicographical collation system
developed in Chinese dictionaries, the Wamyô ruijushô contains entries
arranged by category and categorizes kanji vocabulary, primarily nouns,
into 24 main headings (bu 部) divided into 128 subheadings (rui 類; see
Sugimoto 1995:68). For instance, the tenchi (天地 "heaven and earth")
heading includes eight semantic divisions, e.g., seishuku (星宿 "stars and
constellations"), un'u (雲雨 "clouds and rain") and fûsetsu (風雪 "wind and
snow"). It quotes over 290 sources, both Chinese (e.g., the Shouwen Jiezi)
and Japanese (e.g., Man’yôshû). Each dictionary entry gives the Chinese
character, Chinese pronunciations with either a homonym or fanqie
spelling, definitions, and corresponding Japanese readings in ancient
man’yôgana. The broadly inclusive Wamyō ruijushō dictionary was an
antecedent for Japanese encyclopedia, until the present day providing
linguists and historians with an invaluable record of the Japanese
language over 1.000 years ago2.
Passing over the 13th century Chiribukuro (塵袋, literally “Rubbish
Bag”), an 11-scroll book on the origins of things whose innovative
question-and-answer format was much imitated throughout the medieval
period, one comes to the Tokugawa period (1602-1868), when Japan
closed itself to the Western world for more than 250 years. During this
time, there were sustained efforts to create an own epistemological system
as alternative to the imperialist-colonialist ethos from the outside,
especially from the West (see Howland 1991:291). This system was
2 Sugimoto (1998:62)
basically founded upon the Confucian doctrine and took China as model.
However, towards the end of the shogunal regime, as internal economical,
political and social problems became uncontrollable, there was a paradigm
shift from Chinese models to Western ones, especially transported by the
so-called Dutch studies (rangaku). Two works played in this context a
most important role.
2.1. Wakan sansei zue: the fascination of knowledge
organization
The first work to be taken into account is Wakan sansai zue: in the
17th century, the Sancai Tuhui (三才図会 Sansai Zue in Japanese, literally,
Illustrated book of the Three Powers), a 14-part, 106-scroll illustrated
encyclopedia published in Ming China in 1609, entered Japan. In 1712,
emulating the Sancai Tuhui, Terajima Ryôan 寺島良安, a doctor from
Ôsaka, published the above mentioned Wakan Sansai Zue (和漢三才図会,
literally Illustrated book of the three powers in Japan and China), the first
Japanese illustrated encyclopedia (Rémusat 1827:78). Written in classical
Chinese which was the language of scholarship throughout East Asia at the
time, the book featured illustrations of subjects in the three worlds of
heaven, earth and man, respectively humanity. It reflected the outlook of
its day with such fantastical entries as "The Country of the Immortals"
(不死国 fushi koku) or "The Land of the Long-Legged People" (長脚国
naga-ashi koku) as well as several taxonomy systems of animals, plants
and birds according to the Chinese model (Rémusat 1827:154). Its logical
presentation, topical divisions and discussion of alternative explanations
for the same phenomena, however, anticipated the modern encyclopedia
genre. Wakan sansai zue describes and illustrates various activities of
daily life, such as carpentry and fishing, as well as elements of the universe
(e.g., plants, animals, constellations etc.). Due to its historical value,
reproductions of the Wakan Sansai Zue are still in print in Japan.
Figure 1
Subject headings in Wakan sansei zue
巻数巻数巻数巻数 分類分類分類分類 Translation
1 天部 Sky
2 天文 28 lunar constellations
3 天象類 Celestial phenomena
4 時候類 Time divisions
5 暦占類 Astrological divisions of time
6 暦択日神 Astrological predictions about happy and
unhappy days
7 人倫類 The states of the humans
8 人倫親族 Parental degrees
9 官位部 The Magistrats
10 人倫之用 Human actions
11 経絡部 Body lines
12 支体部 Body parts
13 異国人物 Descriptions of foreign countries
14 外夷人物 Foreign peoples
15 芸器 Liberal arts
16 芸能 Talents
17 嬉戯部 Games
18 楽器類 Musical instruments
19 神祭附仏供具 Sacrifices and the instruments used for the
cult of Fo
20 兵器防備具 Defensive weapons
21 兵器征伐具 Offensive weapons
22 刑罰 Tortures
23 漁猟具 Instruments for fishing and hunting
24 百工具 Utensils employed by artisans
25 容飾具 Furniture and hygienic utensiles
26 服玩具 Ornaments and jewels
27 絹布類 Fabrics
28 衣服類 Clothes
29 冠帽類 Hair styles
30 履襪類 Shoes
31 庖厨具 Kitchen utensils
32 家飾類 Furniture
33 車駕類 Cars and chairs to carry
34 船橋類 Ships and bridges
35 農具類 Agricultural instruments
36 女工具 Female work
37 畜類 Domestic animals (1)
38 獣類 Four-legged animals
39 鼠類 Rats
40 寓類 怪類 Monkeys and fabulous animals
41 水禽類 Water birds
42 原禽類 Ground birds
43 林禽類 Forest birds
44 山禽類 Mountain birds
45 龍蛇部 Saurian reptiles and Ophidiens
46 介甲部 Chelonian Reptiles (1)
47 介貝部 Testaces (2)
48 魚類 河湖
有鱗魚
Fish with shells, rivers and lakes
49 魚類 紅海
有鱗魚
Fish with shells, great rivers and sea
50 魚類 河湖中
無鱗魚
Fish without shells, rivers and lakes
51 魚類 紅海中
無鱗魚
Fish without shells, great rivers and sea
52 卵生類 Insects born out of an egg (1)
53 化生類 Insects born through metamorphose
54 湿生類 Animals born in humidity
55 地部 The earth
56 山類 Mountains
57 水類 Water
58 火類 Fire
59 金類 Metals
60 玉石類 Precious stones
61 雑石類 Different species of stones and minerals
62 本 中華
末 河南
China’s geography (I)
Continuation: China’s geography (II)
63 河西 Continuation: China’s Geography (III)
64 地理 大日本国 Earth’s description
65 地部 Japan’s description
66 上野 Continuation: Japan’s description
67 武蔵 Continuation: Japan’s description:
Prefecture Musasi, Sagami and Itsu
68 越後 Continuation: Japan’s description:
Prefecture Yetsugo, Sado, Yetsuchiu,
Sinano
69 甲斐 Continuation: Japan’s description:
Prefecture Kai, Suruga, Tôtômi and Migawa
70 能登 Continuation: Japan’s description:
Prefecture Noto, Kawa, Yetsu-zen, Fida and
Mino
71 若狭 Continuation: Japan’s description:
Prefecture Wakasa, Aumi, Owari, Ize, Sima
and Iga
72 山城 Continuation: Japan’s description:
Prefectures Yamashiro
73 大和 Continuation: Japan’s description:
Prefectures Yamato
74 摂津 Continuation: Japan’s description:
Prefecture Tsunokuni
75 河内 Continuation: Japan’s description:
Prefecture Kawauchi
76 和泉 Continuation: Japan’s description
Prefectures Izumi, Kinokuni and Awaji
77 丹波 Continuation: Japan’s description:
Prefectures Tanba, Tango, Tasima, Farima
and Inaba
78 美作 Continuation: Japan’s description:
Prefectures Mimasaka, Fakki, Izumo, Oki,
Bizen, Bit-siou and Bigo
79 阿波 Continuation: Japan’s description:
Prefectures Awa, Tosa, Sanuki, Iyo, Aki,
Iwami, Suwo and Nagato
80 豊前 Continuation: Japan’s description (final):
Prefectures Buzen, Bungo, Chikuzen,
Chikugo, Fiyoga, Figo, Ozumi, Satsuma,
Fizen, Iki and Tsushima
81 家宅類 Houses and Habitats
82 香木類 Trees, particularly perfumed trees (1)
83 喬木類 Tall trees
84 灌木類 Small trees
85 寓木類 Parasite plants and those resembling to
bamboo-trees
86 五果類 Five main species of fruits
87 山果類 Mountain fruits
88 夷果類 Foreign fruits
89 味果類 Tasty fruits or plants remarkable due to
their taste
90 瓜果類 Fruits similar to melon
91 水果類 Water fruits
92 本 山草類上巻
末 山草類下巻
Mountain herbs: medicinal plants
Mountain herbs, continuation
93 芳草類 Smelly herbs
94 本 湿草類
末 湿草類
Plants living in humidity
Plants living in humidity, continuation
95 毒草類 Poisonous plants
96 蔓草類 Climbing plants
97 水草 藻類
苔類
Aquatic plants (1)
98 石草類 Rock plants
99 葷草類 Plants similar to garlic
100 瓜菜類 Cucurbitacous plants (1)
101 芝茸類 Mushrooms
102 柔滑菜 Oleraceous plants
103 穀類 Cereal plants
104 菽豆類 Leguminous plants
105 造醸類 Alimentary preparations
In the introduction of his detailed analysis – until now, the only one in
a Western language of Wakan sansai zue – Abel-Rémusat notes in 1827:
Dans l'examen préparatoire que j'ai dû faire des livres
Chinois de la Bibliothèque du Roi avec l'intention d'en
rédiger un catalogue complet et détaillé, ma première
attention s'est portée naturellement sur ces grandes
collections où les Chinois rassemblent des traités sur toutes
sortes d'objets et qui sont comme le résumé de toute leur
littérature. Ces ouvrages me présentent beaucoup
d'avantages, en ce qu'ils me fournissaient les moyens de
prendre des notions générales des matières dont les, traités
particuliers doivent ensuite m'offrir le développement. Il y a
toujours, d'ailleurs, dans l'arrangement et la progression des
idées, dans la manière de classe et de subordonner les unes
aux autres les différentes branches des connoissances
humaines, un moyen sur d'en mesurer l'étendue et d'en
apprécier la valeur. L'encyclopédie d'une nation est, en
réalité, le tableau le plus fidèle et le plus complet de ses
lumières et de son génie3.
In this perspective, the stronger the arguments for a mono-logical
taxonomy system seem to emerge, the clearer Diderot’s thoughts on the
encyclopedia arise and gain quasi-universal value:
Actually, an encyclopedia aims off to gain the scattered
knowledge on the earth's surface, to expose the general
system of this knowledge to humans and to deliver it to those
coming after us, so that the work of the past centuries was
not useless for the coming centuries; so that our
grandchildren become not only more educated, but at the
same time happier and more virtuous, and so that we do not
die, without making out of ourselves worth of being human.
(quoted in Dierse 1977:44)
3 Rémusat 1827:168)
Thus, the encyclopedia turns into the symbol of a developed scientific
co-operation and into an instrument for unifying the sciences and fulfilling
fraternity between the ‘new encyclopedists’ – that is, those leading
intellectuals of each era striving for knowledge preservation and
continuation. An encyclopedia in which the authors seek to bridge existing
gaps and to connect different points of view on the same issue, while
simultaneously, consciously struggling with the frustrating incompleteness
of human knowledge, might be particularly destined for people in the
process of confronting themselves with on-going inner developments and
quests for authentic selves. Pluralism is an attitude, highlighting the fact
that intellectual judgments and concepts are basically subject to an ever
changing historical-cultural diversity4. This attitude arose, apparently, at
the beginning of the 20th century, as the – social as well as individual –
awareness became unavoidable that “all the number systems, the color-
naming, the cosmogonies and technologies of different societies rest on
basic principles as fundamentally different as those of various moral
attitudes and social systems”5. However, as repeatedly observed, until the
19th century, ‘representation’ generally appeared to be widely unchallenged
as a concept for indicating the state and function of the performances of
consciousness and of action – of perception, thought, experience and
cognition, of artistic practices and of technological models. Around 1850,
‘representation’ as concept increasingly became a problem in philosophy,
the sciences and the arts: while the process of the concept’s
problematisation might have been interpreted as a crisis of representation,
the emergence and establishment of alternatives to ‘representation’
generated a paradigm shift. The question “what is the crisis of
representation?” finds its answer in the problematisation of the concept
4 Sandkühler (2009:84) 5 Toulmin (1978:65); also see Toulmin (1985:29)
‘representation’ as driven by the ever more strongly preferred assumption
that under ‘representation’ no structure-preserving copy of reality can be
grasped – and apprehended. Thus, the idea of representation as a copy of
reality seems to be based on a realistic metaphysics of substance, on a
metaphysical realist epistemology and on a corresponding theory of truth,
so that this metaphysical vision rather evokes the crisis of representation
than lead to pertinent solutions.
Furthermore, both in sciences (initially and above all, in the natural
sciences like physiology and physics) and arts (above all, in neo-
impressionistic painting) as well as in philosophy (above all, in Kant-
oriented philosophical directions), the so-called ‘encyclopedic approach’
might inspire the development of alternative paradigms. Philosophers like
Ernst Cassirer have succinctly formulated this paradigm shift: “We cannot
seek the genuine ‘immediate’ in external things, but must seek it within
ourselves.” (quoted in Dierse 1977:59) Such a paradigm shift might
flourish as ‘constitution’ or ‘construction’ to replace the plain
reformulation of the concept of ‘representation’ as differentiated from the
image-concept. The consequences are manifold: the ‘truth’ of ‘reality’
becomes even more volatile, and ‘representation’ as ‘constitution’ or
‘construction’ is intensively confronted with perspectivism, pluralism and
relativism. Cultures of knowledge change on these grounds, as do technical
cultures of action. Simultaneously, historicity and cultural contextuality
take priority as directions of thought and inquiry6. Acknowledging the
necessity to combine through juxtaposition the incommensurability of
knowledge with the relativism of human life as well as the insatiability of
human curiosity with the pluralism of possible existential approaches
becomes, thus, the task of the authentic encyclopedic work.
6 Sandkühler (2002:86-87)
2.2. Kôsei shinpen: from Confucianist worldview to Western
taxonomy
The second important work to be taken into consideration while
regarding the paradigm shift from the system of Chinese knowledge to the
Western-oriented cognitive patterns through means of encyclopedic
writings is Kôsei shinpen. Translated between 1811-1844 by a group of
rangakusha, namely representatives of the above-mentioned Dutch
studies (rangaku), Kôsei shinpen (freely “Encyclopedia for Household
Use”, literally “A New Book of Welfare”) is the Japanese version of the
Dutch book Algemeen Huishoudelijk-, Natuur, Zedekundig- en Konst-
Woordenboek which, in its turn, is the Dutch translation by Jacques
Alexandre Chalmot in 1778, Leiden, of Noel Chomel’s Dictionnaire
oeconomique contenant les moyens d’augmenter et conserver son bien et
mesme sa santé (1709; Bésineau 1972:102).7 The translation process of
Kôsei Shinpen appears as part of the exchange which was at first limited to
trade between the close Japan and the Netherlands; this trade exchange,
7 The full title of Chomel’s Dictionnaire oeconomique is as follows: „Dictionnaire œconomique, contenant divers moyens d'augmenter son bien, & de conserver sa santé, avec plusieurs remèdes assurez & éprouvez pour un très-grand nombre de maladies, et de beaux secrets pour parvenir à une heureuse & longue vieillesse. Quantité de moyens pour élever, nourrir, guérir & faire profiter toutes sortes d'animaux domestiques, comme Brebis, Moutons, Boeufs, Chevaux, Mulets, Poules, Abeille, & Vers à Soye. Différens Filets pour la pêche de toutes sortes de Poissons, et pour la Chasse de toutes sortes d'Oiseaux & d'Animaux, &c. Une infinité de secrets découverts dans le Jardinage, la Botanique, l'Agriculture, les Terres, les Vignes, les Arbres ; comme aussi la connoissance des Plantes des Païs étrangers, & leurs qualitez spécifiques, &c. Les moyens de tirer tout l'avantage des Fabriques de Savon, d'Amidon ; de filer le Coton, de faire à peu de frais des Pierres artificielles, fort ressemblantes aux naturelles, de peindre en migniature sans sçavoir le dessein, & travailler Bayettes, ou Étoffes établies nouvellement en ce Royaume, pour l'usage de ce Païs, & pour l'Espagne, &c. Les moyens dont se servent les Marchands pour faire de gros établissemens, ceux par lesquels les Anglois et les Hollandois se sont enrichis en trafiquant des Chevaux, des Chèvres, des Brebis, &c. Tout ce que doivent faire les Artisans, Jardiniers, Vignerons, Marchands, Négocians, Banquiers, Commissionnaires, Magistrats, Officiers de Justice, Gentilhommes & autres d'une qualité, & d'un emploi plus relevé, pour s'enrichir, &c. Chacun pourra se convaincre de toutes ces véritez, en cherchant ce qui peut lui convenir, chaque chose étant rangée par ordre alphabétique, comme dans les Dictionnaires.”
however, gradually moved to the exchange of knowledge, as the cargo
delivered by Dutch ships and imported by Japanese noblemen or
shopkeepers sometimes included books in Dutch which allowed Japanese
intellectuals during the Edo period to become acquainted with Western
scientific knowledge – and to appropriate it. The contact between
Japanese intellectuals with Dutch books would crystallize precisely into
the so-called rangaku (Dutch studies), flourishing especially during the
reign of the 8th shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune (1684-1751, reign period
1716-1745)8. Tokugawa Yoshimune was interested in products from
overseas as a means of encouraging new industries and domestic
production; an important gesture was the relaxation, in 1720, of the Book
Ban Order which allowed the import of non-Christian books and actively
promoted the learning of foreign knowledge, such as having intellectual
samurai learn the Dutch language9. Later on, as advocated by the
astronomer Takahashi Kageyasu, the Shogunate government established
in 1811 an official translation organization of Dutch books at Tenmondai in
which Udagawa Yoan, Baba Sajûrô, Otsuki Gentaku, Aochi Rinso and
others served; among other works translated, the translation of the Dutch
version of N. M. Chomel's work as Kôsei shinpen was an important
achievement10.
Figure 2
From Dictionnaire oeconomique through Algemeen Woordenboek
until Kôsei shinpen
8 Bésineau (1972:103) 9 Sugimoto (1998:79-81) 10 Bésineau (1972:105)
The title itself, namely Kôsei shinpen, reflects the spirit of the time
oscillating between Chinese traditional models and Western innovations:
Kôsei goes back to a line from Shokyô/Shu Ching (The Book of Writings),
attributed to Confucius, and refers to the construction possibilities of an
harmonic life based on Confucianist virtues such as increasing efficiency,
responsibility and loyalty, virtues strongly propagated by the official
doctrine of the Tokugawa regime11. Contrarily, Shinpen has a very
pragmatic meaning (‘new book’ or ‘new edition’) and reflects the
translators’ consciousness of not translating Chomel’s original, but a new,
revised edition of his work. Kôsei Shinpen as encyclopedic work is basically
a truncated version of Chomel’s original, including entries resulting from a
very realistic and practical approach. Christian or religious elements are
11 Bésineau (1972:104)
completely deleted, and most included entries refer to such concrete fields
as biology, pharmacy, mineralogy, commerce, industry, nutrition or
astronomy (Sugimoto 1998:68). Some translated entries are plainly wrong,
mainly because of the non-existence of those issues in Japanese context
(such as ‘albatross’), but remarkable is the effort to tackle unknown
matters: translation appears as a means to cope with the unknown while
incorporating it.
The main goal of this huge translation work, which lasted between
1811 and 1845, was precisely the spreading of Western-rooted knowledge
among a broader audience and the popularization of scientific information
on the West. As, at that time, encyclopedia-like works such as household-
books or guidebooks to which Kôsei Shinpen belongs, existed in the stress
ratio between entertainment, education, systematization of existing
knowledge and information upon the outside world, Kôsei Shinpen deals
with pragmatic issues while accessing knowledge and accumulating
information (see Sugimoto 1998:21). As Bésineau notes in his study of
Kôsei Shinpen from 1972:
Ainsi qu’on l’a montrè l’histoire du Dictionnaire Chomel
en japonais, ce grand ouvrage de traduction n’a finalement
pas atteint le but que se proposaient l’administration du
Bakufu et les traducteurs du Tenmondai, c’est-à-dire
précisement la diffusion dans un large public des
connaisances scientifiques de l’Occident à cette époque. Ce
serait néanmoins une grande erreur que de minimiser la
valeur intrinsèque de ce travail et l’importance qu’il eut dans
l’histoire culturelle du Japon, dans les années decisives qui
ont préparé la restauration Meiji. Car quelques soient les
résultats immédiats obtenus, il reste que ce travail
considérable a exercé une influence étendue sur la vie
intellectuelle des dernières année de l’ère de Edo. Cette
traduction, étendue sur une très longue période, a été
l’occasion pour nombre de savants et d’intellectuels japonais,
d’étendre et d’approfondir leurs copnnaissances scientifiques
et linguistiques, et cela sous le patronage du Bakufu lui-
même. De plus ce même patronage du Bakufu, dans la
société sémi-féodale du temps, contribua au prestige social et
intellectuel des Rangakusha dont l’influence directe et
indirecte sur la Restauration Meiji est suffisamment
évidente12.
It is for sure no coincidence that in the decades to come, the group of
translators who tackled the problematics of knowledge transfer and
appropriation in Kôsei Shinpen at Tenmondai will form the core of the
intellectuals and technocrats to ground the Imperial University of Tôkyô in
1877 which became in time a light-house of humanities research, in Asia as
well as worldwide.
The translation process of Kôsei Shinpen sets a final line to the first
step of becoming aware that knowledge is power in the Japanese world
(see Matsuda 2008:149). The ideological switch from Chinese models to be
accelerated after the First Opium War (1839-1842) marked the increasing
consciousness of the Tokugawa regime that the isolation politics couldn’t
last any longer and the success of the active play on the world stage could
only be guaranteed by a profound understanding of and coping with the
Western powers (see Watanabe 2008:27-28). Simultaneously, the efforts
to systematize and thus, to control knowledge – own and other knowledge
– as means to attain power increased and would reach a first climax in the
12 Bésineau (1972:103)
forthcoming Meiji period (Matsuda 2008:165). It was in the first half of its
modernity, that is, from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the bitter
defeat in 1945, that Japan attempted what one could call a gamble with
power: in this time span, there is an intensive search for identity based on
its own historical past, but taking into account the insinuating other.
Encyclopedic philosophy doesn't implement what is supposed to be
acknowledged as being true and what is not: rather, encyclopedic
knowledge is a circumstance, a way of thinking, a possibility to purchase
knowledge and to receive orientation through that very knowledge.
Basically, the philosophy is encyclopedic in its consideration for the
universal and its attempt to systemize the universal within comprehensible
frameworks. The question what does belong to the current circle of
knowledge and what may be excluded becomes thus a mere rhetorical
instrument to highlight the dialectical nature of knowledge and its
situational position. While Japan’s relationship to its “great others” –
China during premodern age and the West since mid-19th century – was
thoroughly an ambivalent one, its import of knowledge and technology was
an unidirectional pursuit (Maeda 2009:32-35). Encyclopedias as blocks of
condensed knowledge mediating the transfer process encompassed in their
copying and translating practices the partially confusing citational
endeavor, in which the composition of own entries overcomes the classical
translational mechanism.
Later on, mainly during the “[Western] civlization and enlightenment”
(文明開化 bunmei kaika) movement during the 1880s, the Westernizer
Nishi Amane 西周 (1829-1897) compiled Japan's first modern
encyclopedia, the Hyakugaku renkan (百学連環, literally The Chain of
Many Sciences or The Linked Circle of Hundred Sciences), a special series
of lectures delivered at Nishi’s private academy, the Ikueisha, from late
1870 to early 1873. In this seminal work, Nishi attempted to present
systematically the combined knowledge of the West, China and Japan,
ordered according to Western categories, particularly patterned upon
Auguste Comte’s positivism and his “law of three stages” (theological,
metaphysical, positive) and his “encyclopedic law” (systematic and
hierarchical classification of all sciences). Furthermore, Nishi promoted
the teachings of John Stuart Mill, that is, he rejected the deductive method
traditionally used by Confucian scholars in favor of the Western inductive
logic as a more scientific way of learning. Nishi was aware of the fact that
simply internalizing the “powerful other” (the West) wouldn’t lead to self-
empowering, as the situation of the colonies had taught: he proposed the
strategy of taking over that “powerful other” by adopting its inner
mechanisms and by playing its own game on an equal level. Knowledge,
more than technology, was the main means Nishi saw to acquire this goal
(see Howland 2002:102). Subsequently, in Hyakuichi-Shinron (New
Theory of Hundred and One, 1874), he went so far as to reject Confucian
ethics altogether as no longer appropriate for Japan, but was very careful
not to reject Japanese heritage itself. In Jinsei Sanpô Setsu (Theory of the
Three Human Treasures, 1875), he urged the Japanese citizens to seek the
goals of health, knowledge and wealth, instead of the Confucian
subservience and frugality, and thereupon, in his lectures to the military,
he emphasized Western-influenced discipline and obedience over Chinese
prescribed seniority and hierarchy (see Howland 2002:119-127). Basically,
Nishi saw as paramount for a nation to possess its own conceptualized and
systematized knowledge; this discloses his awareness of the function of
knowledge for a nation’s emancipation from the status of being
represented by other nations to the status of itself representing other
nations, as Joy Hendry puts it, a process that will reach its climax during
the 1970s and 1980s.
3. Conclusion: emancipating the self
It is common sense that we don’t come from nowhere and we aren’t
heading towards nowhere. In the current world, philosophy takes this
common knowledge into account when it presents reality both in its
historical origin, its palpable present and its possible future. More
precisely speaking: philosophy makes us understand that human
existence, though transient and ephemeral, has a departure point, an
established trajectory and a final destination. Philosophy is, as often
noticed, the science of the universal. However, humans are generally
interested in the individual and the particular, in the now and here. The
ideas of universality and totality, therefore, lead towards dead-ends when
‘the whole’, as fascinating as it might be, suffocates the individual13:
Pourtant le texte de Borges va dans une autre direction;
cette distorsion du classement qui nous empêche de le
penser, ce tableau sans espace cohérent, Borges leur donne
pour patrie mythique une région précise dont le nom seul
constitue pour l'Occident une grande réserve d'utopies. La
Chine, dans notre rêve, n'est-elle pas justement le lieu
privilégié de l'espace ? Pour notre système imaginaire, la
culture chinoise est la plus méticuleuse, la plus hiérarchisée,
la plus sourde aux événements du temps, la plus attachée au
pur déroulement de l'étendue; nous songeons à elle comme à
une civilisation de digues et de barrages sous la face éternelle
du ciel; nous la voyons répandue et figée sur toute la
13 Sandkühler (2002:97)
superficie d'un continent cerné de murailles. Son écriture
même ne reproduit pas en lignes horizontales le vol fuyant de
la voix; elle dresse en colonnes l'image immobile et encore
reconnaissable des choses elles-mêmes. Si bien que
l'encyclopédie chinoise citée par Borges et la taxinomie
qu'elle propose conduisent à une pensée sans espace, à des
mots et à des catégories sans feu ni lieu, mais qui reposent au
fond sur un espace solennel, tout surchargé de figures
complexes, de chemins enchevêtrés, de sites étranges, de
secrets passages et de communications imprévues; il y aurait
ainsi, à l'autre extrémité de la terre que nous habitons, une
culture vouée tout entière à l'ordonnance de l'étendue, mais
qui ne distribuerait la prolifération des êtres flans aucun des
espaces où il nous est possible de nommer, de parler, de
penser14.
In the scientific pursuit of encyclopedias, the dynamics of knowledge
and power as well as the discursive construction of identity highlighting
issues of transculturality and transnationality emerged stunningly obvious
in Japanese encyclopedias, more than in their Western equivalents.
Dialectic containers of knowledge, Japanese encyclopedias mediated a
certain worldview as common understanding, based on flows of
information transformed into blocks of knowledge and implemented as
such, by an elite of technocrats, within a population obeying rules and
regulations without questioning. While dealing with knowledge
organization and translation, Japanese encyclopedias, apparently more
intensively than their Western counterparts, enforce indeed specific
existential outlooks on human experience and progress. Thus, they
14Foucault (1966:9)
underline hidden interactions between knowledge and information in a
trans-cultural context. Oscillating, in time, between original Chinese
models and subsequent Western archetypes, they challenge such
asymmetrical notions as identity and alterity, through new formulations of
idea chains and their transformational nature: The emergence of
knowledge as means of social power through educational implementation
which metamorphoses into real – political as well as economic – power
reveals encyclopedic practice in Japan’s case as one of the secret weapons
in the course of its astonishingly fast modernization and its miraculous
postwar resurrection.
While early encyclopedias – in the West, as well – usually followed
systematic order principles, it was not until the so-called ‘Enlightenment
encyclopedias’ that the alphabetical organization of the lemmata became
paramount. This loss of a taxonomic order to govern knowledge
organization was compensated, in a way, by philosophers’ attempt to
moderate the inelastic structure of post-Enlightenment encyclopedic
works through the juxtaposition of Francis Bacon’s systematization of
sciences, and through deliberately arranged patterns, to be found
perpetually within the single encyclopedic entries15. Still, the main
advantage of the alphabetical order is its function as a signal, a request for
independent thinking and a veto gesture against the arrogance of an
intellectual authority represented by the systematics of the scholastic
philosophy. Thus, the readership overcomes the restriction imposed by the
system and chooses its way from A to Z, according to a seemingly objective
over-principle: the alphabet. Hegel’s conceptual system of an ‘encyclopedia
of the philosophical sciences' opposes Francis Bacon’s vision of the
15 Blom (2004a:79), and (2004b:32)
encyclopedia as an expression of human welfare grounded on experience
and rationality:
All people should consider what the goal of knowledge
really is, and that the goal of knowledge itself neither the joy
in the speculation not the acquisition of the rule over others,
nor the profit, nor the fame, nor the power or another of
these unimportant reasons is, but the well-being and use of
life for all humans. They should complete and channel this
realization of knowledge in mercy and love16.
It is an open question if Hegel’s hierarchical model, based on
philosophical thinking and culminating in a worldview of philosophy as
the measure of all things, still has a chance to survive in a pluralist world
exploring the possibility of the dialectic equality of all symbolic forms, thus
liberating them from their subordinated ranking. Furthermore, there is
Friedrich Schlegel’s thesis that "the encyclopedia exists virtually and by all
means only in fragments”, as knowledge is never finite and as the human
thirst for enlarging his horizons and his perspectives is insatiable17.
Nevertheless, in an analogue manner as fugitive information turns into
crystallized knowledge, what is to a certain point in time known as culture,
identity or art depends on the level of the disrupting forces from within or
– better said – from above the society. After the important paradigm shift
from Chinese classical models to Western innovative archetypes in the last
third of the Tokugawa period, Japan struggled to remain intact, a cultural
monolith, in the Asian region while trying to compete with Western
powers in their own supremacy system18. Later on, at the turn of the
millennium, it would change its definitional strategy from absorbing or
16 Collison (1966:121) 17 Darnton (1979:76) 18 Ôsumi (2008:23-26)
letting itself being absorbed in a system to challenging the existing system
via its own development models and plans, all based, as in case of Meiji
Restoration as well, on technocratic visions rather than on humanist
ideals. The condensation of liquid information into solid knowledge
through encyclopedias in late Tokugawa period would experience its
climax during the 1970s and 1980s, with the subsequent uncontrollable
dissipation of solid knowledge into liquid information – not coincidentally,
a reflection of Japan’s historical trajectory.
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